


Nameless Things

by ponticle



Category: Horizon: Zero Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Budding Love, F/F, Gentleness, Love, Romance, Snippets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-19
Updated: 2017-12-19
Packaged: 2019-02-16 21:12:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13062255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ponticle/pseuds/ponticle
Summary: Vignettes of Petra and Aloy's relationship over time.





	Nameless Things

* * *

“So are you ever going to pay me back for all these favors I’ve been doing you?” Aloy hears herself ask—like someone else is doing it. Of course, she’s kidding...just testing the waters, so to speak. She lets her lip curl and arches an eyebrow—all the signs are there…. But she’s not _serious_. Not about _this_ —not about Petra _. Is she?_

Petra is a strong woman: visible muscles under sun-worn skin… scars and freckles. She swings an ax and kills machines before breakfast. In fact, Aloy thinks she’d say it makes the food taste _better_. She’s everything Aloy wants to be… or be _with_. She can’t tell; she’s never had the choice before.

 

“Oh, I’ll pay you back…” Petra says.

As Aloy struggles to parse her words, she straightens her shoulders and squints in an approximation of understanding. Petra _laughs._ Aloy’s manufactured bravery evaporates; she hopes she isn’t blushing.

“Oh, you’re _trouble,”_ Petra says and clicks her tongue.

Aloy has never wanted to be anything so much.

  

* * *

 

It isn’t until the fourth time they find themselves standing nearly chest to chest, breathing the same air, that Aloy realizes it’s now or never. She musters courage from somewhere deep—some forgotten ancestor with a face she can’t see—and leans.

_Lips. Teeth. Tongue._

The world crashes as precisely as Petra’s ax, as loudly as the forge, as brutally as the wind, and as surely as day becomes night.

“Petra,” she breathes… and she knows: she’s lost. 

 

* * *

 

It doesn’t have a name, _this thing_. In fact, Aloy doesn’t even know how to _describe_ it. But when she’s with Petra, she _feels_ it—ethereal, preternatural, _strange_. It vibrates in her chest like the last shivering breath before she pounces from tall grass. It snakes through her brain like a long-forgotten memory. It’s harder to define than hunting machines and more dangerous than loosing an arrow. And the words escape her—descriptions, explanations, boundaries, rules. Just Aloy and Petra… in the dying world.

Aloy is familiar with nameless things, of course. Her life has been spent as a motherless scourge. Through this journey she’s been given names, but she’s never really adopted them. In fact, she thinks of them as useless—distinctions without purpose. So to call _this_ a something—to designate it arbitrarily…

No, it doesn’t have a name… but just like Aloy, it doesn’t _need_ one.

 

* * *

 

Smooth, tan skin bisected by pearlescent scars. The tissue never healed right—Petra is too busy and too brazen for that. So when Aloy runs her fingers across the ridges and valleys that represent the biggest gash of all, Petra doesn’t balk.

“What happened?” asks Aloy. Her fingertips make indents on either side of the raised, thickened skin.

Petra turns her head to look at the spot. “I can’t remember.”

Aloy laughs, dropping her palm flat over the scar and curling her fingers into Petra’s bare skin. “That cannot be true.”

Petra smiles—coy and mysterious.

Aloy pushes Petra until they’re face to face on their sides. They’re so close, she can’t keep Petra’s features in focus. It’s okay; she even loves the blur of her face.

“Tell me the truth,” whispers Aloy.

Petra sighs and closes her eyes like she’s annoyed, but Aloy knows she isn’t. They _know_ each other. “A machine almost got me that day,” says Petra finally.

Aloy moves her palm from the curve of Petra’s hip to the small of her waist, the tip of her shoulder, and finally the side of her neck. The gesture is virtually unconscious—the concomitance of fear and protectiveness in equal parts.

“Stop it, trouble,” laughs Petra. “You know I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself.”

Aloy bites her lip. “I know that.”

“Yeah?” Petra nuzzles into the crook of Aloy’s neck. “Then trust me. Neither of us needs to remember.”

* * *

 

           

**Author's Note:**

> I love these two together. There may be more coming. :)


End file.
